Concern
by Person4
Summary: Heather turns back to check on Douglas one last time before reaching the end of the amusement park.


Silent Hill 3 and all the characters and situations in it belong to Konami.

• • •

She turned back to check on Douglas one last time when she reached the carousel. Something inside of her, an old memory still outside of her reach judging by the pounding that started in her head whenever she thought too hard about it, told her that told her that the carousel was a bad place to be, and, though she knew she'd need to get onto it soon to reach Claudia, she could stand to put it off for just a little while.

She was very, _very_, glad that she'd made that choice when she got back to him and discovered that monsters had found him since she'd left. One of the towering, club-armed, ones was slowly approaching him, easy enough to avoid normally, but impossible for Douglas with his broken leg. Judging by the noise, one of the creepy, flying, blade-legged things was lurking nearby too, but since it apparently wasn't planning on attacking yet she ignored in in favor of the big one.

"Get the _hell_ away from him," she growled at the monster, pulling out her mace. Usually she avoided using the heavy, unwieldy, weapon, not comfortable with how open to attack she was while swinging it, but now getting the monster to turn its attention from Douglas was much more important to her than avoiding being hit. She knew full well, from the very first one that she'd run into, that bullets weren't enough to get one of them to back off from their intended prey; indeed, there were already bullet holes in its front that must have been from Douglas using up his ammo before she reached him. Hopefully the extra oomph from the maul would be enough to make it turn away.

It was with quite a bit of pleasure that she watched the weapon's spiked head connect with the monster's back and heard something crunch within it, not only because it had tried to _hurt_ Douglas, though that was what had signed its death sentence, but because within her imagination it was Claudia she was beating on. Not that long in the future she'd be told that she liked slaughtering the monsters she found in the town, and she'd be unable to deny it. Not when with every shot, or stab, or hit she took at them she learned a little more about how she could hurt Claudia as much as possible when she found her, not when every fight gave her new ideas for what to do to her. It wouldn't be enough just to shoot the woman in the head and let her die quickly. For her father's sake, and now Douglas's as well, Claudia needed to _suffer_. 

Heather grinned as another hit made the monster fall to the ground and advanced, raising the maul over her head, to finish the job. But before she could bring the weapon down on its head she felt a sharp pain in her back and arched backwards, her mouth opening wide but a sharp gasp the only noise she actually made. She'd been injured far too many times in that town for it to get any more screams out of her.

She pulled herself away from the other monster, which she supposed must have decided to spring into action to protect its companion, and, before it could stab her again, smashed the one on the ground's head in with her foot. It would take more than a blade in her back to make her stupid enough to get distracted from killing that one so it could get back up again. That taken care of, she dropped the maul, pulled out her handgun, and turned to get revenge on the other one for wounding her. It was already coming in for another stab, picking up speed as she emptied her clip into it, but just as it got close enough to hit her she dodged out of the way and smoothly unsheathed her katana, doing a little back stabbing of her own.

It landed on the ground, standing lightly on its blade legs, and skittered toward her again, trying to ram its body into her, but she kept stabbing away, dodging it again and finally bringing it down.

She stood still for a long moment, catching her breath after the exertion of the fight, then she gathered her maul back up and went to see how Douglas was. "You okay?" she asked, sinking to the ground next to him to rest for a few minutes.

"Other than the leg, fine. You couldn't have come at a better time."

"Thank the creepy merry-go-round that I wanted to avoid for a while," she said, then narrowed her eyes at him in faux-anger. "Why didn't you _tell_ me you weren't carrying extra ammo, you old idiot? I told you not to die, and only having six bullets when this whole place is full of monsters isn't the way to do that!"

"Just... wasn't thinking, I guess." He shifted toward her a little, grimacing when it jarred his leg. "But that doesn't matter now. Your back--"

"Will be fine. I've gotten worse today, I just need to wrap some more bandages around herself." 

"You've got to take better care of yourself than that, Heather. Give me one of those first aid kits you carry and turn around."

She wanted to argue that she wasn't a little girl who couldn't take care of her booboos on her own, but he looked so concerned, and he was the only one left in the world who would look that way for her. So she turned, and stayed quiet as he slid her vest off of her and lifted the bottom of her shirt, beginning to carefully clean out the wound with the antiseptic he found in the kit. "You're lucky," he said after a minute. "It's not that deep."

"I didn't think it was. I didn't need to move that much to get it out of me," she said, then laughed tiredly. "I'm starting to get to be a pretty good judge of that."

"I can see that." He taped a piece of gauze down over the injury, than twitched the edge of a bandage covering one wound on her side, another on her arm, seeming about to touch a large, livid, bruise on her jaw before deciding that that would be going a little too far and pulling his hand away. "We could still leave, you know," he said. "Find a car somewhere that still works if we can't get back to mine, get to a hospital, have _them_ take care of you."

"And your leg," she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the distance. 

"And my leg. You could go through your dad's things, see if he left behind any clues about a better way to stop all this. There's _gotta_ be a way that doesn't make you--" Into a murderer,' he wanted to say, but he knew that wouldn't help and cut himself off. "...Leave you all torn apart."

"You know I can't do that. As long as Claudia's still alive, I can't leave."

"But, if you get yourself killed before you ever reach her--"

She stood up suddenly, just as he was securing the bandage he'd wrapped around her, and stared down at him with an unreadable expression on her face. "That's not going to happen. Until that bitch pays for what she did, there's no way I'd let myself die." She pulled her vest back on, and set some boxes of ammo she pulled out of one of its pockets down next to him. "That should hold you until I get back. Don't you _dare_ die before then."

He said nothing more to her as she walked away, and with her back to him she couldn't see that he looked even more concerned than ever.


End file.
